The film is in his head, and the crew talks about “channeling Henry” as they sculpt a puppet’s face or paint the interior of a house. He visits each department to review the latest costume, prop, set, puppet, footage – everything. On the set of Coraline, a sprawling warehouse outside Portland, I accompanied Selick on daily rounds. And doing so without the meddling that comes with layer upon layer of big studio bureaucracy. Selick, who attended Cal Arts with Brad Bird and John Lasseter, brought his screenplay to Laika and joined the company as supervising director because the Knights offered him a rarity in Hollywood: the chance, he says, to “do it the right way.” That means not only making Coraline in stop-motion animation (with puppets), but also in 3D, an industry first. Why did they work so well? People often look at them as saccharine, but they had a darkness against the light.”
“It’s like Grimm fairy tales and the early Disney films. “Coraline is about something primal,” Selick told me.
Selick has brought the animation mastery of Nightmare to a story reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz an astute and feisty girl struggles to make sense of her strange surroundings and find her way home again. After watching some of it myself while visiting Laika a few months ago, I’m hungry for more. Though I'm sure both Selick and Laika will continue produce great films.The Comic-Con faithful got a sneak peak of early footage. I'll be curious to see what Laika does next and see what Selick decides to direct next, at whatever studio he ends up at. I don't know about his work ethic and the way he treated the animators at Laika, but I do know that all the work definitely payed off, and the film looks beautiful (even in comparison to other stop-animated movies like Fantastic Mr. I'm a big fan of Selick and his work and I especially loved Coraline. Selick doesn't have another project setup at the moment, but seemed enthusiastic about a few ideas when I interviewed him earlier this year. "I will miss him and wish him well in his future projects." The animation studio is currently figuring out what their next feature project will be.
"Throughout our five years of collaboration, Henry has been variously my director, my mentor, and my friend," Laika's CEO Travis Knight said in a statement today. Animators who worked on Coraline with Selick credit his experience and artistic vision with bringing the film to life, but others complain privately that he was an exceedingly demanding boss, according to.
IN THE FILM CORALINE THE DIRECTOR HENRY SELICK MOVIE
As Anne Thompson said: "It seems odd that when a movie breaks out and does as well as Coraline, that the filmmaker would leave the animation company behind it."īefore joining Laika, Selick was best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas. Selick's last stop-animation feature film Coraline wasn't exactly a smash success, but it did earn a respectable $75 million at the US box office. Selick had been looking for another feature to oversee, but with his contract up and no next project in place for him to tackle, he decided to move on. After working at the Portland, OR-based animation studio Laika for five years, writer/director Henry Selick has decided to leave the studio to work elsewhere.